


Once a Thief

by GloriaMundi



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: C17, Historical, Multi, Pirates, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-28
Updated: 2005-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:50:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What a ship is ... what the Black Pearl really is ... is freedom."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once a Thief

"Tell me about my father," the boy begs. "Tell me about when you first met him, in Nassau. Why were you in Nassau, Mama?"

He's twelve years old now: perhaps he's old enough for the truth. Perhaps not. Kitty thinks of telling him the whole story. But it's such a long story and such a long time ago. More time than she can remember. (Twelve years, and more.) More time than she has left.

"I was a lady's maid," she murmurs. No need for the boy to know how she came to be transported: no use in telling him of indentures, of grim patience and dogged pride, of Mr Davies' lickerish looks and Mrs Davies' vapoury sighs. "Lovely lady, she was, with all her long yellow hair and," Kitty remembers Sarah Davies' megrims, the ones that came out of bottles, "and her fine blue eyes."

"Did you meet my father in Nassau?" asks the boy. He's a good lad: he bathes her forehead again, cleaning the sweat away, without needing to be asked.

"I did," says Kitty. Every muscle in her body aches, and aches worse when she smiles. "A handsome young man he was, too: I'll wager you'll take after him, young William!"

I pray it.

* * *

The Sea-Shell Tavern was one of the most reputable drinking-establishments in Nassau Town, but that did not mean that it was quiet and peaceful, or that its clientele were entirely respectable. The girls and women who frequented the Sea-Shell wore their dresses buttoned high, and their skirts long; the men who accompanied them, or approached them, were neither elegant nor loutish. Kitty did not mind it, not so very much: she always left the Sea-Shell with her garments intact, even if her temper was a little frayed.

"All that for you, darling?" cried the man next to her as she handed over Sarah Davies' shilling in exchange for a jug of gin. "Sure you wouldn't like some help with it, eh?"

Kitty flinched, and glared. A handsome enough sort, he was, all brown hair streaked by sunlight, and a broad white smile in his tanned face: _handsome is as handsome does_, she reminded herself, and did not smile back. "'Tis for my ... my master, sir," she said.

"That's a damned shame," said the sailor: she could see he was that, with his wiry build, and the tang of salt and tar about him. "Ain't it, Jack?"

"Leave her, mate," said the man on the other side of him, all slur and mockery. "We've serious business tonight." He leant forward across the bar to nod at Kitty.

Kitty stared. The fellow (without that nasty excuse for a beard, she'd've thought him a lass) had blackened eyes like a whore, and black hair all woven and plaited with gew-gaws and ribbons, and gold in his mouth. He winked at her.

"_You_ leave her, Jack Sparrow," said the sailor. "Think I'll stay a while, if the lady'll take a drink with me." And he turned upon Kitty such a sweet smile, such a twinkle of his dark eyes, that she could not help but smile back after all.

"I beg your pardon, Bill: and yours, love," said this Jack Sparrow. "I'm buying, r'member? On account of ... well, I'm sure you recall our Arrangement."

Kitty opened her mouth to say that she was a respectable girl, and not in the habit of drinking with sailors (or _worse_: for that Sparrow looked tawdry and sharp as any buccaneer) in taverns. But the walk to the tavern had not quenched her righteous anger at Mr Davies' latest ploy ("just you be a good girl, Kitty, and come sit by me, and we'll see if we can't find a way to pay you a better wage, so you'll have your freedom sooner") and at Mrs Davies' spiteful pinch as she'd given Kitty the gin money. Kitty was still sparking with annoyance, and who'd care if she sat down with these two -- in the common-room, in plain sight -- and drank a cup of wine with them?

"Aye," she said. "I'd be happy to have a drink with you, gentlemen: for so I'm sure you are."

"Of course we are, love!" cried Jack, beaming. 'Twas his teeth, Kitty saw, that were so gold and shiny. He reached out to guide her to a table, but Bill, thank heavens, was faster, and more careful -- more polite -- about where he put his hands. He sat down next to Kitty, and his curious friend took the seat across from her.

"I can't call a toast to you," said Bill seriously, "for I don't even know your name."

"I'm Kitty," said Kitty pertly.

"Just Kitty?" said Jack, with a sly look.

"Just Kitty."

Jack pouted at her until Bill elbowed him and nodded at the jug: then he poured wine for them all, and the two men raised their cups to her, Jack Sparrow leaning forward all dark and pretty and exotic, holding her gaze as he drank to her health. Kitty laughed at him and drank too.

"So, Kitty m'dear, what's your situation?"

"My own business," said Kitty. "And yours, Mr Sparrow?"

"Why," said Jack Sparrow, "I sail on the --"

"-- on the _Bristol Lily_," finished Bill, shooting Sparrow a dark look. "A fine merchant vessel, she is, carrying soap and logwood --"

"-- nah, mate, I swear it's, oh, indigo and silver --"

"-- down to Port Royal in Jamaica," finished Bill, quietly kicking Sparrow -- or so Kitty surmised from Sparrow's wince.

"They do say that's a wicked town," said Kitty, all appalled innocence. "Full of pirates and buccaneers and petty criminals." Oh, that Jack Sparrow looked more hurt than ever: she'd been right about him, surely she had.

"Wicked folk everywhere," said Bill, smiling at her. "But we've fallen in good company here, Jack, don't you reckon?"

"Aye," said Jack Sparrow. "You're a good girl, Kitty."

Her cup was empty already, and its contents had done nothing to slake her temper. "I am _not_," she said wildly. "I'll be late, and they'll punish me: and I don't care, for it's better to be anywhere but there!"

"I'm sorry," said Bill awkwardly, patting her hand. Jack Sparrow poured her another cup of wine, and she took it thankfully.

"Tell us, then," said Sparrow, gesturing expansively.

"Oh, it's a common enough tale," said Kitty, cross with herself for complaining to these strangers. "Only that I've come from England an indentured servant, and find myself bound to work all hours, and the master's a lecher and the mistress a sot, and --"

"I'll walk you home," said Bill calmly, "when you're ready to go."

"And meanwhile, love," said Jack Sparrow, with an impenetrable glance at Bill, "you sit here with us and be merry while you may."

* * *

All the air went out of him in bright bubbles, endless years ago when his mutinous crewmates sank him down into the deep dark. Up there, near the top of the water, there was light enough to make each bubble a tiny glowing separate world. Bill's memories are like that now.

That first night in the tavern with Kitty and Jack is a warm shining bubble of happiness, of good wine (Jack, being Jack, had added rum: no wonder Kitty'd warmed to Bill so quick!) and fine company. Kitty'd sat next to Bill, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her. A pretty little thing, she was, with dark curly hair pulled back from a high, smooth brow that made her look young and innocent. The flash of fire in her dark eyes had given the lie to _that_, and pulled Bill in like a fish on a line. And all the while Jack (having set his business aside, though Bill would as soon he'd gone about it and left the two of them alone) had regaled them with extravagant tales, all tidied and trimmed so's not to offend Kitty: Bill'd been hard put to it not to burst out laughing at some of Jack's fabulations. That island where the folk had but one eye apiece! Their ship pursued by sea-serpents, off Spain!

Though for all he knows, that might have been the truth. Bill knows better than ever, now, what creatures lurk down in the darkness. They pass him by, repelled by his silent shouting and by the corroded knife in his bony hand. He's an unappetising morsel these days, all coral-scabbed and fish-pecked and grey.

He'd promised to come straight back, that first night, and join Jack for the rest of the evening's business. Kitty, though, seeing a figure on the road ahead of them and fearing it her master, had pulled Bill into the shelter of an alleyway, and then they'd fallen a-kissing. Long slow warm sweet kisses, laced with rum: Bill fancied, down under all this cold saltiness, that he could taste each one still.

Jack had been gone by the time Bill had returned to the tavern: had been distant with him, next morning on board. He'd answered Bill shortly or not at all, and would not speak of the night's business.

"You're just jealous!" Bill'd discovered, amused. "Jealous 'cause 'twas _I_ who won the girl for once!"

"I ain't jealous of you, Bill," Jack Sparrow had protested. Then, more quietly, "I swear it."

Bill's had a long time to think about that, a long time to listen again and again to the remembered words. It's taken him a while, but he's sure now that Jack was telling the truth.

* * *

"Hey, Kitty, 'sthat you? What's the matter?"

It was Bill Turner's voice: and since he was the man she'd hoped to find, it would not do to run away. Besides, Kitty was sitting on the bench outside the church-gate, and she had already faced down a hundred curious glances. She straightened her spine, scrubbed her sleeve across her face, and tried to smile.

"Mr Davies waited up for me last night, Bill, he was there waiting ... an' he said, if I were to act like a, like a ..." She choked on the word, and Bill put his arm around her.

"Don't you worry, love," he said: then, over her shoulder, "Jack? I'll be along in a while, mate. Kitty, love, did he ... did he hurt you?"

"No," croaked Kitty. "He was ... he locked me up and said I must reflect on my sins 'til he came to, to _lesson_ me: but Mrs Davies came by and let me out this morning, early."

"That was kind of her."

Kitty laughed bitterly. "She wanted her gin, and I hadn't brought it. An' she said she couldn't protect me from him, but she'd not say a word if I went."

"Just like that?" It was Jack, and hadn't Bill told him to go on ahead? Kitty flushed. For Bill to see her thus and comfort her was one thing; for Jack to see her blotchy face and dirty dress was quite another.

"Yes," she said defiantly. "Just like that. She gave me half a crown."

"Oh, _that_'ll help," jibed Sparrow. Bill was looking at him again, frowning, but neither man said anything. Kitty raised her head and, still within the comforting circle of Bill's arm, turned around so that she could look properly at Sparrow. Shinier than ever, he was: there was a scarlet sash 'round his waist, so new the dye was rubbing onto his good shirt, and a trio of burnished brass hoops, the sort the black girls wore, a-jangle on his wrist. Even the whites of his eyes seemed brighter than anyone else's.

"How should you like to go back to England?" he said, sketching a sort of bow.

"Oh, I'd _love_ to," snapped Kitty, angry enough to cry and hoping she would not. "Or, or Singapore, perhaps. Or Araby, all desert though it is! But I doubt half a crown'll get me any further than the end of the quay."

"Old Parrish is sailing from Port Royal for Plymouth on Saturday," said Bill. "If you had your passage, Kitty, would you go?"

"How would I get to Port Royal?" enquired Kitty, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

"Why, on the -- that is, with us, darlin'!" cried Jack Sparrow, beaming. "Always happy to make room for a nice girl. You c'n have my bunk, love: Bill, here, 'll be glad to see the back of me, I'm sure. Now, mate, why don't you tell the young lady about the mode and manner of her transport, eh? I'll see you in that tavern, there on the corner." He nodded to them both, touched hand to forehead in another mocking salute, and walked away, swaying as though he was already on some tilting, pitching deck.

"Thing is, love, I -- we didn't quite tell you truth," said Bill awkwardly. "Our ship ain't the _Bristol Lily_, and she ain't a merchant-man. 'Tis a pirate ship we --"

"I knew it!" said Kitty, quite fortified by this discovery. "Your friend's a pirate through and through ... though I don't think _you_ are, Bill Turner. I think you're a good man."

"Jack's a good man too," said Bill, raising an eyebrow. "Ain't he offered you his bunk?"

"May I truly come with you?" said Kitty, in a rush. "To Port Royal?"

"Aye, an' welcome," said Bill, with that sweet open smile again. "I don't say it'll be easy, and there are some rough fellows aboard: but Jack an' me, we'll keep you safe."

The rough company was less distressing than the raging sea: no more than a day out of Nassau -- and not an hour after a bracing interview with Captain Tobias, in which Kitty wept, and vowed to shut herself up in Bill's cabin and never show her face on deck again -- the _Black Pearl_ rushed headlong into a vile black churning squall that tossed her like a child's toy.

Kitty lay still in her bunk -- Jack Sparrow's bunk, that smelt of mould and musk and spice -- and folded her arms across her stomach. Once, she would have prayed for the storm to be over and her life to be spared, but her time in Mr Davies' household had gifted her with a measure of equanimity. She'd live, or not: nothing more to it.

Bill and Jack were on deck, or high above it, almost all the time. (Only later did Kitty wonder if this'd been their punishment for bringing her aboard.) Bill had fetched her a bucket, but she was relieved to have left it empty. Jack Sparrow had given her a pewter flask half-full of rum, and the sweet spirituous burn of it was as good as medicine. No wonder Sarah Davies had liked her gin so well, if it brought this quiet contentment and freedom from pain! Kitty hoped there'd be no trouble for her mistress, for helping her escape.

For it seemed that she _had_ escaped. That the _Black Pearl_ \-- a pirate ship so notorious that even Kitty had heard her name! -- was carrying her away from Mr and Mrs Davies, and her indenture, and her past, and into a future whose shape she did not know, but which was surely full of hope, and happiness, and freedom.

"What'll you do, in Plymouth?" Jack asked her the second morning, staggering into the little cabin in a whirl of salt, wet air. "Shut your eyes, love," he went on. "My gear's more water than cloth, and I'd as soon be parted from it."

Kitty pulled the blanket more tightly about herself, and closed her eyes obediently. "I'll take another name, so no one can find me," she said. "Get myself a good place, and work hard." The steadiness of it all, out here at the heart of the roiling ocean, made her laugh. "Find a good man, and marry him, and bear his children. Grow old."

From under her eyelashes, in the gloom, she could see Jack Sparrow's bare shoulders, his back, all pallid with cold: he tugged at his breeches, and she squeezed her eyes more firmly shut. She could hear him clamber into the other bunk, and sigh contentedly. Within a minute he was snoring.

Kitty lay awake, wishing for Bill to come and lie down beside her. Thus far he'd bunked in with Jack if they were both off-duty together, the two of them crammed up close so she might enjoy her privacy. At first Kitty had been thankful: now, she thought of how cold he must be, and how she might draw the chill from him.

* * *

The island's not big enough to distract Jack for very long. The whole world would not be big enough for him to pace out his fury at Barbossa's treachery: the island's trackless golden beach barely takes the edge off his anger.

He tries not to think of Bill, hanging back at the edge of the mob. Bill'd tried to warn him of Barbossa and his mates, but Jack, all blithe and confident, hadn't listened. "He'll not try anything. And 'sides, I'm Captain: the company made me so, and the company must unmake me."

And oh, they had, they had.

Poor Bill: dead by now, if he'd been true to Jack. Or First Mate to Barbossa, if not. Oh, Bill'd always been his best mate, hadn't he? Bill, too honest to lie or hold a grudge?

Jack really doesn't need to be thinking of women, not now, not alone on some uncharted speck of sand out in the ocean blue. But he thinks of Kitty, and of Bill, and wonders if he sowed the seeds of betrayal all those years ago.

He dreams of Kitty one night, an extraordinarily vivid dream that brings him awake with her name on his lips. In his dream, he was lying on a soft bed, and she was standing over him in her shift, the light falling on her face. "Too long a story," she'd said to him with that wicked smile, her mouth all red from kissing. "Leave it be." And she'd winked at him as though they shared a secret.

* * *

"It's blessed kind of you to help me on my way back to England," Kitty said to Bill, the evening after the storm blew itself out. She'd left the cabin at last; the ocean was calm indigo around them, and there was no land anywhere. Kitty breathed deeply of the cool tingling air.

"'Tis nothing, Kitty," Bill said. He'd cornered her in the angle of the rail and the forecastle, but Kitty didn't mind it, not from Bill. Here, none of the men could see her, and she'd be happier without any trouble of that kind. Bill said, "John Parrish owes Jack a favour, and I've profit from our last cruise that'll tip the scales in your favour."

"Aye, but how shall I repay you?" she said, laughing.

Bill shook his head, scowling fearsomely. "Not how you think, Kitty, I promise you that!"

"Bill," said Kitty gently, looking him in the eye: and when she had his attention, she said, "Maybe I'd welcome it, were you to ... to kiss me again."

Bill grinned with relief at the invitation, and stepped forward, and kissed her bold as anything. "'Tis a long way to England," he murmured against her ear. "What'll we say? A kiss for each mile? For each day?"

He seemed set to kiss her into next year, and Kitty was nothing loath: but she heard footsteps, deliberately loud, and broke away as Jack Sparrow came round the corner of the forecastle.

"None of that, Bill," he said cheerily, tipping his hat (a battered tricorne that he wore as though it were the height of fashion) to Kitty. "Kissing a _woman_ on board a pirate ship! Whatever will you think of next?"

Bill's jaw clenched, but he did not remove his arm from Kitty's waist. "'Tis only a day or two more, Jack. And --"

"And the lady has my bunk, eh?" said Jack, leering. "Why, then, don't let _me_ overset the two of you." He turned away: then back. "Oh: but when you've a moment, Bill, Captain wants a word."

"I didn't --"

"No, 'tis only some matter of the stowage," Jack assured him.

"I'll go below," said Kitty.

"Stay awhile," said Jack. "I'll make sure you come to no harm." And he exchanged a long, unsmiling look with Bill.

"I didn't mean to ... to be a trouble," Kitty said awkwardly, when Bill'd taken himself off.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Women are _always_ trouble," he said. "But of the most interesting kind, love, don't get me wrong." He picked at a splinter on the edge of the rail. "Anyway, it's worth any amount of trouble to see Bill so moonstruck." The splinter came free, and Jack swore (with an apologetic glance at Kitty) and stuck his finger in his mouth to staunch the blood.

He's young under all the glamour and glimmer, thought Kitty. Younger than Bill. Younger than me, p'rhaps.

"Evening's drawing in," said Jack Sparrow. "Here, have a nip of rum to warm you. No?" He tilted the flask and drank deeply.

The two of them stood quiet for a moment, staring out at the dark ocean. "Truth is, Kitty," said Jack at last, "however fine and bright it seems now, however sweet and tender, he'll leave you in Port Royal and never look back."

"I know," snapped Kitty. She did know, but it was not a pleasant thing to hear. "I don't wish to speak of it."

"My 'pologies," said Jack, raising the flask to her. He'd drunk deep of it already, from the slur of his words. "Let's speak of something safe. What ship did you sail on, when you first came to Nassau?"

"The _Saint Margaret_," said Kitty. "Though I don't recall much of the voyage; I was below-decks, sick with fever."

"A lot of that on the transports," said Jack Sparrow, with a smile that was sharp and gloating.

"You --!"

"Steady, love. I thought it when we met -- what lass comes to Nassau and slaves for a planter, when she might stay in her own country? And I haven't mentioned it to our mutual friend." He looked expectantly at her, as though waiting for thanks. Kitty said nothing.

"Been thinking," Jack went on, staring out to sea again, "'bout what a sweet young thing like you might've done, to be transported. A little blackmail, perhaps. Or bawdry? Or assault, perhaps: I'll lay you've a good strong arm, when --"

"Theft," said Kitty icily, and bit back all those weak words of plea and explanation. Her sister ill and like to die, the baby crying all night, and the baker turning Kitty off without pay, for coming late one morning. The apothecary asking _more_, not less, when he found her weeping in his shop.

"That all?" said Jack Sparrow, shrugging. _He_ would not care for her stories: he was a pirate, thief and murderer and heretic (and darker crimes, they said) all rolled into one tawdry parcel. "Should have known, I suppose." He upended the flask and drained it. "Once a thief, eh?"

"I've taken nothing from you!" said Kitty, low and vicious. "Nothing you haven't offered me."

"Have you not?" said Jack, all bitter. "Then it'll be that _nothing_ that I want back."

Kitty looked at him, at the glitter of his eyes and the curl of his mouth, and thought of Jack Sparrow's bunk, all clean and neat and cosy, and the little cabin that (until she came) he'd shared with Bill.

"I'm sorry to've come between you and your friend," she said stiffly. "It's not for much longer, I vow it."

Jack laughed, and she did not like this laugh at all: all lewd and rude. Must be the rum.

"He must've had girls before," said Kitty. "And you, too: girls, I mean."

"Girls?" said Jack Sparrow, and for a moment she thought he would deny it. "Oh, aye. We've had girls. The two of us." And _that_ sly sidelong look was not to be ignored. Kitty drew breath to protest the low talk, and Jack -- surely trying to provoke her -- said, "That Rose at the Drum; now she was lovely to me, and to Bill too."

"Well, _I'm_ not a whore," snapped Kitty. "And Bill would never make me one."

"Pity, really," said Jack wistfully, winking.

Kitty slapped him: perhaps she'd not meant the blow to land so hard, but oh, the shocking wicked thrill of seeing his tanned cheek pale, and then redden, where she'd hit.

"I din't mean it that way!" he said. And then, "I'm sorry, Kitty: truly, I was only teasing. And you're ..."

Kitty leaned forward, eager to hear Bill's friend's true opinion of her: but Jack just turned away, muttering beneath his breath: "lucky to have you," maybe. There was no humour in him now. She wondered if it was true, about that girl at the Drum. No need to wonder whose idea it'd been.

* * *

After so long lost below, and the slow climb to gradual light and warmth and the slope of the land, Bill thought that he'd know when he got to where he was going. All these long ... months? years? centuries? ... of the terrible abyss would be finished and done with when he came to land. That pressure all around him would vanish, and he'd be free in the clear dry air.

He staggers at last up the steep, soft shore of some little island: reels from the bone-white surf one dawn, all solid in the grey light, and falls down upon the beach, arms stretched wide in the sand, like a man embracing his love after long absence.

After a while he rolls over and sits up. The light still hurts his eyes, though the morning's hazy and golden. And something tugs at his heart like a tide. Three somethings, pulling him in different directions until he thinks he might fall apart here on the sand, a pile of wave-smoothed bones.

Three mortal hearts.

One is faint and very far away: one is bright and close and sharp: one is gentle and diffident.

"Kitty," Bill thinks. "Kitty, and my little Will."

He will not put a name to that glimmering third.

* * *

"What country's this?" said Kitty to Bill as he came to stand beside her at the rail.

"That's Jamaica, love," said Bill. He put his arm around her shoulders: then, "Port Royal tomorrow, if this wind holds."

"Tomorrow?" said Kitty, wondering at the disappointment in her voice. It wasn't as though ...

"Aye," said Bill. "I'll miss you, Kitty."

"And I you," said Kitty. She was counting in her head. "Oh, Bill," and the words seemed to burst out of her, dragged out by the clear gold light and the salty breeze, and the way that Bill Turner's warm body was shelter and enticement at once, "I wish we'd met ashore. I wish --"

"Shhh," said Bill. He was smiling, but there was a glitter in his eye. He kissed her, soft and sweet; then, moving close against her, less softly.

I am nowhere, Kitty thought. I am nobody. I am between worlds, between old-me and new-me. Free to do anything. She wanted to dance, to roar, to fly: but Bill was holding her tight, and that was a sort of freedom too.

"Let's go below," said Kitty. "'Tis our last night, love. Let's make the most of it."

"Jack --"

"Never mind Jack."

She let Bill lead her, as if it had been his idea, down the stairway and along the corridor to the cramped little cabin that had been her home for four scant days. She let Bill press her down under him, there on the bunk (on _Jack_'s bunk: she knew the scent of it now) and --

The door creaked open, and Bill growled wordlessly. His hands stilled on her laces.

"I _do_ beg your pardon," said Jack Sparrow's voice from somewhere behind Bill's shoulder. Kitty could not see him, save in her mind's eye: all glitter and curve and wickedness. "I'll be going, then," he said.

Lost, thought Kitty. "Stay," her mouth was saying. "Stay, Jack."

Bill rocked back on his knees. Kitty thought of tugging her skirts back down around her legs, but it did not seem to matter.

"You don't know what -- Kitty, I thought --"

"Just the once," whispered Kitty. "Just tonight."

Bill rounded on Jack. "_You_ put her up to this!"

"Not I," said Jack, eyes very wide. "I, I'll go, Bill, I --"

Bill looked back at Kitty, and Kitty flushed at the thought of saying it yet again, of asking more. Bill must've read it in her face, though, for he said, "No, Jack: stay."

Stay with us, Kitty wanted to say: but her mouth was dry. Jack came towards her all tentative, like a boy with his first girl, and she made room for him on the cot. She was trembling, and Bill wasn't helping it, not the way his mouth was all gentle on her neck: but Jack, once more theatrickal and dandified, made an elaborate show of kissing Kitty's hand. It made her laugh, and then it all seemed easier than anything.

_Days_ in this cabin with one or the other of them, days and nights, storm and calm, and she'd never shown more than an ankle or the pale skin of her throat. How strange to feel the curve of Jack Sparrow's spine, glimpsed beneath her eyelashes the morning before last, under her own hand! How strange to have Bill kiss her, an honest kiss that pledged all manner of pleasures (Kitty was not so innocent that she did not know what they, she, wanted) while Jack Sparrow's long-fingered hand went delicately from button to button on her good blue dress. How strange to kiss one man, and want to kiss another instantly: and have each man within her reach, at her beck, mouths red and sweet and gentle on her own, on her skin.

Bill was pushing against her, all hard 'gainst her hip, groaning against her breast. Jack Sparrow was kissing her, and his hand -- maybe Bill's, but Jack's touch was more teasing -- was on her bare leg, under her skirt, on her knee, on ...

"Please," said Kitty desperately.

"Please what, love?" Jack murmured next to her ear, all warm and tickling. She did not have to see his smile to know it was there.

They were careful not to touch one another; Bill, anyway. Jack's hand, moving from Kitty's thigh to her breast, slid unflinching over Bill's arm, and it was Bill who pulled away, Bill who contorted himself in the narrow, low space of the berth -- scarce room for two, let alone three -- so's to kiss Kitty while Jack's hands played havoc with her. Kitty was past caring, past any shame for her own wantonness: she craved them both, craved each caress, craved the sharp metal taste of Jack's kiss and the sweetly sour rum and yeast of Bill's. Oh, they'd done this before all right.

Jack looked at Bill again and again. Bill looked at Kitty, and smiled, and kissed, and oh his tongue, his tongue on her throat, his mouth moving lower as Jack's clever fingers stole away each barrier between flesh and flesh.

"Can I, Kitty, will you, oooh ..."

"Oh, please, Bill, please," Kitty entreated, and was so far beyond herself that she did not think it strange to be kissing Jack, staring into Jack's night-black unreadable eyes, while Bill bundled her skirts up around her waist, and stripped her drawers from her, and laid upon her, still, with his prick pushing just _there_. Kitty turned her face from Jack's and met Bill's hungry kiss, Bill's tongue sliding into her just as, oh, just as ...

And that was Jack's hand on her breast, Jack's glittery eyes fixed on her face as she moaned and pleaded and laughed and swore: Jack's hand beneath her hips, rocking her up into that final moment as Bill pushed, and tensed, and let out a forlorn wordless sound, and spent inside her.

"Oh, Kitty, Kitty," he was saying, face against the pillow next to her own, arching sleepily into, oh, Jack's hand as it stroked, long and slow, down his sweat-glistened spine: and Jack was nudging Bill, rolling him off her, his breath all ragged and his eyes wide open, spreading her thighs wider for him so that one leg was crooked over Bill's knee, setting his prick (oh, different to Bill's, slender and curved and gleaming with moisture) just there where Bill had been, had spent all sticky, and plunging deep, sudden, _there_.

Oh, the dirty wet smacking sound of it: of their joining, for Jack was saying nothing (was biting his lip, afraid -- she knew it -- of what words might slip out), was, was _fucking_ her fast and desperate, pulling her up against him, putting his thumb against -- oh, 'twas enough to make any lass cry out. Jack didn't look at her: didn't take his eyes from Bill, lying there at her side, watching Jack as though he hadn't already kissed and coupled and come.

Kitty closed her eyes, closed them out, and let her body's pleasure carry her away.

* * *

The White Hart, near Plymouth.

Dear Mr Turner,

I trust you are well and that this reaches you at the Drum. I write to tell you of my new place, should you ever wish to seek me out when you come this way. I am employed by the mistress of the inn, though I cannot be as much use yet as she would wish, for my confinement approaches swiftly and I am laid low by the heat.

I must tell you that I have taken your name and told Mrs Wallis that I am your wife. You will understand the reason.

I wish you and your friend very happy, and safe.

Kitty Turner

* * *

The _Black Pearl_, off Port Royal.

Dear Kitty,

I am bound for England and will send you a message at the address you have given once I am there. I hope to see you and your child, and to formalise our union.

I cannot stay.

William Turner

* * *

It would never do to be seen scrabbling at the inside of a cell-door, so Jack disposes himself in a nonchalant sprawl, or as near as dammit, when he hears footsteps on the stairs.

It's the boy from the smithy, and he still looks familiar, though it's a while since Jack's frequented Port Royal. There's something about the fanned white laughter-lines at the corners of his eyes -- good thing he has a sense of humour, for he's dev'lish easy to tease -- and the easy good humour of the half-smile that his face settles to, in moments between anger and indignation and all those other youthful passions.

But it's not until he's found a problem to solve, and is dealing with it so very _capably_ \-- "half-pin barrel hinges," he's saying, and "leverage", and the like -- that Jack can pin it down. Why, it's Bootstrap to the life: Bootstrap's grace, and strength, and the line ...

Jack stamps that thought underfoot. This ain't the time. But he can see the father, now, in the son: can see, too, the echoes of someone else in the dark curling hair and stubborn set of his chin, and the way the boy sneers at Jack, 'xactly as though he's never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow.

"What's your name, boy?" Jack enquires, squirming slightly at the sharp memory of his last sight of Kitty -- Kitty Turner, to all intents and purposes, by then -- on the quay at Port Royal, waving to Bill and maybe to Jack as well. Waving, not smiling.

"Will Turner," says the lad, with the exact same frown that graced his father's brow at so many of Jack's non sequiturs.

"That'll be short for William, I imagine," says Jack, relieved.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Dove (**hija_paloma**) for the 2005 Pirates polyficathon. Thanks to **tessabeth** for beta.


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